Trade Review
"The structure of the book is excellent and gives a framework for organizing ideas in this complex area. Hopefully books like this will by a catalyst for more work in the area and a further maturation of the models and what we can use them for."
— Rudolph Darken, Naval Postgraduate School, USA
"I think this book will impact current and future work in the areas that form the intersection of applied social science, computer science, and sociocultural methods. It provides an integrated stance on very complex social and computational issues while retaining a sense for practical application. The book offers a nice blend of theoretical, methodological, and application-focused chapters that will aid a reader in learning about sociocultural topics and applying cutting-edge methods to the real-world issues. The editors have successfully compiled a diverse set of experts to explore very challenging issues that have very real implications for the military, and more broadly, the global business and social domains."
— Joseph B. Lyons, Air Force Research Laboratory, USA
Table of Contents
Introduction; Section I Building Theories; Expeditionary Modeling for Megacities and Other Dense Urban Areas; More than Just a Story: Narrative Insights into Comprehension, Ideology, and Decision Making; The Spread of Information via Social Media; The Spread of Opinions in Societies; Culture’s Influences on Cognitive Reflection; Cultural Influences on Cognitive Biases in Judgment and Decision Making: On the Need for New Theory and Models for Accidents and Safety; Section II Collecting and Analyzing Data; The Sixty Percent Mission: An Introduction to High-Risk Ethnography Process and Protocol in Support of the US Army’s Civil Affairs Humanitarian Mission; Challenges in Connecting with the Disconnected: An Introduction to Connecting with Communities Disconnected from the Rest of the World; They Are Beyond WEIRD: Helpful Frameworks for Conducting Non-WEIRD Research; Deciphering the Emic Perspective in Data in Order to Assess Threat; Collecting Data and Semantic Content via Mobile Devices; Measuring Changes in Attitudes: Using Factor Analysis to Track Population Attitudes Spatially and Temporally; Gaining Insight by Applying Geographical Modeling; Section III Building and Validating Sociocultural Models; Sociocultural Capability Requirements across All Phases of Military Operations; Methods to Characterize and Manage Uncertainty for Sociocultural Applications; Validating Causal and Predictive Claims in Sociocultural Models; Rapid Generation of Political Conflict Simulations for Scenarios around the World; Detailed Model Development Case Study: The Peace Game; Section IV Applying Sociocultural Models to Gain Insight into Conflict and Instability; Using the Social Framework Model of Trust to Better Understand Trust in Government; Understanding Public Opinion toward Violent Extremists; Modeling Sociocultural Influences on Decision Making: Assessing Conflict and Stability; Modeling Social System Resiliency: An Agent-Based Multiscale Approach; Applying Modeling and Simulation to Foreign Policy: An Afghan Example; Subject Index; Author Index
